A new season of discontent
It’s been a bad summer for Mayor Miller, and his fortunes haven’t improved with the changing season.
Just when the first- term mayor is supposed to settle into his role and present an image of “ mayor in control so don’t even think of challenging me in November 2006,” he’s faltering badly. Gun violence continues to rattle citizens, even as the mayor prattles on about his community safety strategy.
Miller erred badly in not visiting the city’s shooting victims, despite prompting from the media. By the time he showed up in the shooting zones, he was already being viewed as weak and indecisive on the crime file.
Last Thursday, Miller dressed down city councillors for leaking secret documents to the media, reminding them that Justice Denise Bellamy’s recent report on the MFP computerleasing scandal cautions against it. His words had little effect. Within hours, another leak. The next day, the Toronto Star printed damaging details of a secret report urging the city to accept a $ 10 million settlement of a lawsuit brought by the computer firm. Miller and others had urged the city to reject a settlement of $5 million back in 1999. Now, lawyers are telling councillors to settle for $ 10 million or they’ll lose in court and face damages of $20 million.
So, the city spent double the $43 million approved by council for the computers. It spent $ 19 million on an inquiry to find out how that happened. And the inquiry’s findings so implicated city staff and politicians that settling a lawsuit filed by the same computer firm ends up costing twice what the city could have once settled for. More politically embarrassing, Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone has been accused by a whistleblower of using his influence to get three family members hired by the city. Pantalone denied the charge. But instead of turning the matter over to the city’s auditor- general or integrity commissioner, Miller backed his deputy. Worse, he said he had no problem with city councillors recommending and endorsing relatives for city hall jobs.
Also, a whistle- blower claimed that an improper relationship between two senior staff may have led to the rocketing rise of one through the ranks of the bureaucracy, causing poor morale and eroding confidence. The whistle-blower charges that Pam Coburn, executive director in the municipal licensing and standards department, favours friends and relatives of politicians. Coburn and Joseph Carnavale, hired as a temporary worker without competition about a year ago but who somehow managed to rise to second- incommand in the department in 10 months, have been suspended from their jobs, pending an investigation that they may have had an improper relationship. Buoyed by a hiring policy that could be more intolerant of nepotism, a loophole that lets department heads stash friends or
favourite applicants in a pool of temporary workers, only to move them quickly through the ranks later, and a practice from human resources that provides inadequate oversight, Coburn and Carnavale say they expect to be reinstated today.
Miller’s senior communications officer, Andrea Addario, mysteriously left his office in the summer. Another aide, Paul Burns, also left. The mayor’s office is still strangely multi- headed, lacking in focus.
“ Who’s running his office? Who’s providing him with advice?” are two of the most frequent questions raised by those dealing with the mayor’s office.
For example, a modicum of advice would have helped the mayor avoid the problem over claims that city councillors influence city staff in the hiring of family members and friends. When Justice Bellamy released her report on the computer scandal last month, Miller said the report was so engrossing he couldn’t put it down. But did he read it? For right there on pages 48 to 50 of Volume 1, under the heading “ It’s not the fire, it’s the smoke,” Bellamy gives Miller all he needs to conclude that city councillors shouldn’t be writing letters of recommendation or giving references for family or friends seeking jobs with the city.
Miller told city council last week that he accepts “ every one” of Bellamy’s 241 recommendations and urged them to do likewise. Recommendation 30, under the heading “ Preferential treatment,” states: “Elected officials and staff should take all steps to avoid preferential treatment or the appearance of preferential treatment for friends or family.”
Still, moments after urging councillors to embrace Bellamy’s report, Miller stubbornly backed his own political allies who might have violated that recommendation, and he endorsed the very practice that Recommendation 30 tries to erase. Who is advising this guy — on this and other important matters? Aday later, criticism mounting, Miller backpedaled. He said he would seek the integrity commissioner’s advice.
There is no need to. Taxpayers shelled out $ 19 million to get Bellamy’s recommendations. We are on the hook for another $ 10 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the very computer firm the city said took taxpayers to the cleaners. Having paid so much to get so much good advice, one expects it would be heeded by councillors. But why should they, when their mayor, first apostle of integrity, says they don’t have to. Royson James usually appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: rjames@thestar.